Henkel Consumer Goods' CEO Brad Casper put the lie to the tiresome truism that the only language executives understand is numbers.
During his appearance at the Building and Protecting Reputation 2010 conference last week, a communicator asked him how he measures the success of his strenuous communications efforts.
The question made him look weary.
"I know what gets measured gets done, and all that," he said. "But we're fast-moving. … for the most part, it's qualitative. I'm a quant guy, but qualitative gives me a better feel."
Communicators: I know some executives want numbers. If you like numbers, go to work for those execs. But if you don't, then look for a guy like Casper. They're out there, in larger numbers than Katie Paine would have you think.